M&S has announced the next tranche of UK Clothing & Home stores proposed for closure or set to close as it reshapes its UK store estate in line with its target to take at least a third of sales online.
Even the food business is being affected as 15 fewer owned Simply Food stores will open this year, as Food opening programme is scaled back
M&S will now close over 100 stores in total by 2022, including 21 that have already closed and the 14 stores that are announced today as proposed for closure or set to close. Alongside relocations, conversions, downsizes and the introduction of concessions, these closures will radically reshape M&S’s Clothing & Home space.
The next 14 Clothing & Home stores that will close or are proposed for closure in 2018/19 as part of the transformative programme are:
- Bayswater, Fleetwood Outlet and Newton Abbot Outlet – all three of which will close by the end of July 2018;
- Clacton and Holloway Road – which will both close by early 2019 to coincide with new nearby Food stores opening;
- Darlington, East Kilbride, Falkirk, Kettering, Newmarket, New Mersey Speke, Northampton, Stockton and Walsall – all nine of which are proposed for closure and will now enter a period of consultation with all 626 affected employees. Should these stores close, all colleagues would be redeployed or offered redeployment at other stores before redundancy is considered.
Sacha Berendji, Retail, Operations and Property Director at M&S, said, “We are making good progress with our plans to reshape our store estate to be more relevant to our customers and support our online growth plans. Closing stores isn’t easy but it is vital for the future of M&S.
'Where we have closed stores, we are seeing an encouraging number of customers moving to nearby stores and enjoying shopping with us in a better environment, which is why we’re continuing to transform our estate with pace.”
The acceleration of M&S’s UK store estate programme is part of M&S’s wider five-year transformation plan to make M&S special again. Under the plan M&S has the ambition to create fewer, better Clothing & Home stores. These stores will be larger, digitally enabled, better located and more inspirational for customers to shop.
They will also be supported by a seamless online experience across all digital channels including mobile and social, and by a conveniently located network of Food stores that offer customers a next-day collect in store service for Clothing & Home purchases.